THREE sisters from Durham are the latest people to be sworn in as members of the city’s growing band of freemen.
Fiona, Rebakah and Holly Wilmshurst joined their father Iain, 59, in the curriers’ company, where he is warden.
The sisters are former pupils of Durham Johnston School. Fiona, 30, is a nurse at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, Rebakah, 26, is a care worker and Holly, 24, works at Durham Cathedral, when Mr Wilmshurst started his working life as an apprentice stonemason.
He said: “My father, John, was accountant at the cathedral from the 1960s until his retirement in 1985 but it was the apprenticeship that I served in the city that qualified me for membership of the freemen.
“My daughters are now eligible to follow me into the guild and their membership provides the opportunity to my grandson and four granddaughters to establish a family tradition.”
Brothers Jack, 21, and Davey McElwee, 19, from Boston Spa, near Wetherby in West Yorkshire, also joined their father John, 54, in the cordwainers company.
The new recruits means there are now more than 250 freemen.
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